First week of taper, modified by some distractions and
workoutus interuptus.Monday ended up
being a no-running day – hurricane Sandy was imminent, and though I could have
run outside on Monday morning, I opted not to for a pretty individual reason –
I was afraid of losing my ability to shower at any time due to the worsening
weather conditions, and I didn’t want to risk running, then being unable to
shower, and riding out the rest of the hurricane like that.

Fortunately, Sandy blew over pretty quickly for those of us
in the DC area, and I was able to double on Tuesday, with an easy run in the
morning and intervals in the mid-afternoon.But then the underside of my left heel became sore during my cool-down
jog – a bit of plantar fasciitis.I stopped
my cool-down immediately, and swapped to cross-training (the arc-trainer) the
next day to be careful.Three weeks out
from my marathon, I’m not risking anything. And I’ve established before that the arc-trainer substitutes very well for most runs.

The rest of the week was spent getting massages and keeping
my workouts careful and restrained, and also substituting the arc-trainer or
other cross-training after massages. Fortunately, this tweak happened at exactly
the right time – all the work is done, and I have enough time to get rid of it
before my race.The good news is that the foot feels better
each day, and I could run my marathon on it right now if I needed to.The trick is just to make sure I don’t
aggravate it, or give myself a compensatory injury.

Some would say that I should just stay off of it completely
for the next two weeks, however I’ve learned from past bouts of plantar that
resting it completely is just about the worst thing I can do – I just end up
with tons of scar tissue and inflammation.Easy and careful running, combined with massage and sleep, is the best
way to get rid of it (and to that point, it feels the best it has so far today,
which is the day after running 15 miles).Luckily I’ve got two weeks of easy and careful running combined with sleep
planned.Score!

(programming note: this week also noted the two year anniversary of my darn broken foot, which was the impetus for this blog. It's a funny thing to track, but I do anyway. In the depths of that injury, I promised myself again and again that I'd come back stronger, better, and smarter. And I like to think I've done just that. With some help from friends and teammates and coach, of course.)

Tuesday:In the morning, 4.5
miles easy (8:17 pace); another 8.5 in the afternoon including a track workout
of 8x800 in 2:57, 3:01, 2:56, 2:54, 2:55, 2:55, 2:54, 2:53.Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday:In the morning, 90
minutes on the arc-trainer at easy run effort – we’ll call it 11.25 miles,
followed by injury prevention work.Another
35 minutes on the arc-trainer later (call it 4.25 miles), followed by a massage
focused on the heel (he REALLY dug in good).

Thursday:In the morning, 30
minutes of easy pool-running for “3 miles” and 500 yards of swimming breathing
drills, followed by injury prevention work.5 miles easy (7:55 pace) in the afternoon,followed by foam rolling.

Friday:In the morning, 10.5
miles on the track, including a cautious 8K tempo in 32:40 (6:35 pace, splits
of 6:32, 6:36, 6:31, 6:35, 6:26), followed by injury prevention work and 20
minutes of shake out pool-running.Pilates at night, plus another massage focused on calves/feet.

Saturday:In the morning, 70 minutes on the
arc-trainer at easy run effort (call it 8.5 miles).Weights in the afternoon, plus a 1 mile test
jog to test the foot (and my use of the low-dye taping method).Also foam rolling.

Sunday:In the morning, 15
miles at easy to aerobic pace (averaged 7:44) followed by some injury prevention
work and 30 minutes of shakeout pool-running.Gentle yoga and foam rolling at night.

Full slew of race reports here (from my first in June 2007 to 2010) and here (2011).

workouts

(you can click on the link to see the details)

Pool running conversion

I convert my pool-running into “mileage” with this formula:

1)10 minutes “easy” in the pool equals one mile

2)workouts translate by time into mileage, with the recoveries not counting for mileage.For example, I would normally cover half a mile in 3:00 during an interval workout, and 1.5 miles in 10:00 during a tempo.So 8x3:00 at interval effort is 4 miles, and 10 minutes at tempo effort is 1.5 miles.